Master's Degree in Occupational Health (Occupational Risk Prevention)

Academic year 2024-25

  This study programme will not be continued; new students will not be admitted.

Further information on the phase-out process can be found in the Phase-out Process tab on this page.

You can also consult this information for the academic year 2023-24.

General information about Master's external internships

All interested parties must have signed the placement agreement and appendix, and students' social security registration and contributions be processed before placements begin, in accordance with current regulations.

What Are External Placements and Where Do They Run?

External placements are a training activity undertaken by students and supervised by the UIB. The aim is for students to apply and supplement the skills acquired during their academic training, and pick up new abilities to bolster their employability and prepare them for their future career.

Placements run at national and international businesses, institutions and organisations, including the UIB itself, depending on the planned placement category. Given the training nature of placements, they in no way involve obligations inherent to employment contracts.

Types of External Placements

There are two categories for external placements:

  1. Curricular placements. These placements are part of the curriculum on official master's programmes at the UIB. Each programme organises their own placements under the CEP's supervision and guidance.
  2. Extracurricular placements. These placements are voluntary and undertaken by students during their programme. Students must be enrolled on an official postgraduate or UIB-specific programme in order to do this type of placement. Where master's programmes include curricular placements, students may request any extracurricular placements be accredited (please see the following section: How to Accredit Previous Professional Experience or Extracurricular Placements). Extracurricular placements are managed by the DOIP.

Requirements to Enrol for External Placements

The conditions for undertaking external placements are set out in the programme curriculum. Moreover, the enrolment requirements, conditions and specific information are included in the subject course guide.

Where placements involve contact with minors, students will need to state whether they authorise the UIB to request a clean certificate of sexual offences or commit to submitting one when enrolling on the subject.

In turn, all students enrolled on the external placement subject must provide the UIB with their social security number (NUSS) in order to process their social security registration and contributions, in accordance with current regulations.

Organisations Where Students May Undertake Placements

All students enrolled on external placement subjects have the right to do their placement at an organisation proposed by the programme. Where student have a specific interest in undertaking a placement at a different organisation, they may request the programme coordinator to assess the possibility and, where applicable, take the necessary steps to ensure they can do the placement.

Every academic year, students enrolled on the programme will be notified sufficiently in advance about the list of organisations where they may do their external curricular placements.

Students may see the full list of organisations with placement agreements with the UIB by entering their programme name in the 'By Programme' section in the search engine.

Procedure for Processing External Placement Agreements and Appendices

Please check the search engine to see the list of organisations with a placement agreement with the UIB.

Where an organisation does not have an agreement with the UIB, the relevant placement coordinator will contact the CEP, where applicable, through the standard procedure for proposing a new placement agreement, using the following template approved by the Governing Council: 4480 agreement template with appendices for external curricular placements for postgraduate students. The coordinator must ensure details for the collaborating organisation or company are duly filled in.

Once the UIB and collaborating organisation have signed the agreement for each student or group, the placement coordinator will submit the relevant placement plan appendices to the CEP (length, schedule, goals, activities, etc.), as well as the confidentiality agreement (appedices 2B and 3 in the agreement template).

For more information about the procedure for signing a new external placement agreement, please see the following document: Procedure for Signing an External Curricular Placement Agreement on Official Master's Programmes with an Organisation or UIB Department.

Health and Safety Regulations on External Placements

The academic tutor will ensure the tutor or coordinator at the organisation suitably informs all students about all occupational health and safety hazards during their placements.

In turn, students must comply with the instructions provided by the collaborating organisation where they will undertake their placements, with regard to operational, and occupational health and safety hazard regulations, codes of best practice, personal data protection rules, etc.

Registering with Social Security

As of 1st January 2024, students who undertake paid or unpaid external placements must be registered with social security.

Therefore, all students required to take an external placement subject must provide the UIB with their social security number (NUSS).

How to Obtain or Consult an NUSS

Students may request or view their social security number at the following link.

Where to Enter the NUSS in Acadèmic
  1. The personal details tab in the enrolment section
  2. The personal details tab in the Acadèmic profile section.

Please be aware that students who fail to enter their NUSS in Acadèmic will not be allowed to do an external placement.

How Overseas Students May Obtain an NUSS

All students enrolled on external placement subjects must provide the UIB with their Social Security Affiliation Number (NUSS) in order to process their social security registration and contributions, in accordance with current regulations.

The procedure they must follow will depend on whether they have a Foreigner ID Number (NIE).

An NIE is a sequence of numbers that starts and ends with a capital letter (normally X or Y) assigned to overseas citizens who spend 90 days or more in Spain.

 

There is a difference between:

  1. Overseas students from non-EU countries
    The most common procedure is for the NIE to be printed on the student visa issued by the Spanish embassy or consulate.
  2. Overseas students from EU countries
    Since these students do not require a visa to enter Spain, they may request a NIE from the Spanish embassy or consulate in their home country before coming to Spain.

Overseas Students who Have an NIE

There are two options for requesting an NUSS:

  1. Directly contacting social security over its e-services portal Importass.
  2. Contacting administrative services and providing the following documents:
    • Form TA 1, duly filled in and signed
    • A copy of the NIE document
    • EU nationals: a copy of the photo page of their passport or ID card
    • Non-EU nationals: a copy of the photo page of their passport and a copy of their visa, where this has been issued.

Overseas Students who Do Not Have an NIE

Where students do not have an NIE upon their arrival in Spain, they will need to request one since it is essential for obtaining an NUSS and undertaking external placements. They will therefore need to perform the following steps:

  1. Contacting administrative services and providing the following documents:
    • Form EX15 'Foreigner Identity Number (NIE) and Certificates Application', duly filled in and signed, and selecting the following document type: 'Foreigner Identity Number'
    • A payment receipt for the relevant fee: 790/012. They must indicate the following item: 'Foreigner Identity Number (NIE) Allocation at the Request of the Interested Party'
    • EU nationals: a copy of the photo page of their passport or ID card
    • Non-EU nationals: a copy of their entire passport (all pages, even blank ones).
  2. Administrative services (via the UIB Payroll, Social Security and Immigration Service) will arrange an appointment at the Immigration Office for students
  3. Going to the Immigration Office (Carrer Felicià Fuster, 7, Palma) on the day of the appointment with the reviewed aforementioned documents
  4. Applying for an NUSS through one of the following options:
    • Directly contacting social security over its e-services portal Importass.
    • Contacting administrative services and providing the following documents:
      • Form TA 1, duly filled in and signed
      • A copy of the NIE document
      • EU nationals: a copy of the photo page of their passport or ID card
      • Non-EU nationals: a copy of the photo page of their passport and a copy of their visa, where this has been issued.

Academic Assessment of External Curricular Placements

Academic tutors will assess curricular placements in line with the criteria and weighting for each assessment component, as set out in the subject course guide.

Assessment covers the entire activity, taking into account tutorials, the company tutor's report and students' final report on their placement.

The final student report must include the placement's goals, a detailed description of activities and results, and a personal appraisal of their performance and working conditions.

How to Accredit Previous Professional Experience or External Extracurricular Placements

Where stated in the degree verification report, students accrediting previous professional experience directly linked to the skills inherent to their programme may request credit recognition for external curricular placements. They must provide a copy of their contract, agreement or grant award, alongside a detailed transcript of the assigned tasks issued by the organisation in question. This transcript must clearly state the student completed the relevant activity.

Students accrediting they have undertaken external extracurricular placements on postgraduate programmes may also request credit recognition for the purposes of curricular placements. In this instance, they need to provide a copy of the signed extracurricular placement agreement. Moreover, they must submit a placement report setting out the goals, a detailed description of activities and results, and a personal appraisal of their performance and working conditions.

In all instances, credit recognition must be requested by the deadlines set by the CEP in the Calendar of Administrative Procedures for Master's Degree Programmes (2024-25 academic year).

More information on the credit recognition procedure and deadlines.

Applicable Regulations

UIB Regulations: Regulatory Agreement 11124 of 19th September 2014 that amends Regulatory Agreement 10336/2012 of 8th June that approves the External Placement Management Regulations for UIB Students at Companies, Organisations and Institutions.

CEP Regulations: Agreement of the CEP Board of 15th July 2024 that sets out the CEP's Internal Regulations for External Placements on Postgraduate Programmes at the University of the Balearic Islands.

More Information

For further information on external placements for specific subjects, please see the relevant course guide and/or contact the placement coordinator for the programme in question.

Specific information about external internships for the Master's Degree in Occupational Health (Occupational Risk Prevention)

Are they mandatory?

Yes, placements at work centres represent required learning to professionally perform high-level preventive duties. This is why the curriculum for the Master's in Occupational Health (Occupational Hazard Prevention) at the University of the Balearic Islands includes mandatory face-to-face external curricular placements on subject 10129 Professional Placements, worth eight ECTS credits that are equivalent to 200 total hours of work for students.

Do they have academic requirements?

Although any new student may formally self-register for this subject from day one, they are recommended to enrol for placements via the registration extension procedure once they have passed all subjects in the common mandatory block and have taken or are taking a specialised elective subject.

Where applicable, students may contact the Support for People with Special Needs Office oficinasuport@uib.es to process - in the strictest confidentiality - the relevant recommendations for undertaking external professional placements.

What do the placements involve?

All master's students must observe the performance of different high-level prevention activities at a work centre in the fields of health and safety in the workplace, ergonomics, psychosociology applied to occupational hazard prevention, industrial health and safety, health monitoring, prevention management, preventive training activities, relations with the Health and Safety Committee and the prevention officers, etc. and, wherever possible as per the specialisation taken, participate in said activities under the supervision and guidance of one or several senior technicians in occupational hazard prevention who are actively performing their job at said work centre.

During the agreed placement period, all students must accompany the technicians throughout their working day to learn directly how the different tasks of a prevention service are carried out, how prevention procedures and controls are implemented, and how detected hazards are managed. In turn, as a cross-cutting skill, they need to understand that any professional activity must be done in respect of fundamental rights, gender equality, the principle of universal accessibility and design for all, and environmental protection, in accordance with the values inherent to a culture of peace and democratic values.

How long do they last?

Student workload for the professional placement subject is set at 200 hours (eight ECTS credits), of which 150 or more must be face-to-face at the company and the rest be dedicated to independent learning.

As a general rule, the placement period may run from the date when the first self-registration period is active for the academic year up to 31st August of the following year. Depending on the availability of the company's technicians, the most suitable period shall be set for each student and between three and seven effective hours per working day shall be agreed, totalling a minimum of 150 face-to-face hours that do not necessarily need to run consecutively. In this sense, students may undertake several placement periods throughout the academic year that may also run at different companies.

Where can the placements be done?

The professional placements on the master's programme may be undertaken at the prevention department of any private company or public institution based in any town and in any country. The sole requirement is for said entity to have signed an open-ended educational cooperation agreement with the university beforehand.

The list of collaborating entities with the UIB for external placements can be viewed on the website of the Careers Guidance and Placement Department at the University-Enterprise Foundation: https://fueib.org/es/doip/286/convenio_doip.

Can other collaborating entities be put forward?

Of course! If the selected firm is not yet on the list of collaborating entities at the university, you may contact the Centre for Postgraduate Studies and provide them with the name and e-mail of a contact person at said company. The UIB has a generic agreement template for external curricular and extracurricular placements for undergraduate and postgraduate students on official and UIB-specific programmes, which can be agreed with any private firm or public institution that interests master's students.

The request should be processed as soon as possible since the admin procedure for signing an agreement takes time. In this vein, students are recommended to delay registering for subject 10129 Professional Placements until there is a verified valid cooperation agreement with the host entity.

How is the placement centre chosen?

So that the organisation and performance of external placements represent the lowest possible financial burden, each student must initiate contact with a senior occupational hazard prevention officer who is in active service at a public or private institution of his/her choice, whether by geographical proximity, economic sector, prior knowledge, etc. and propose a placement period under their supervision as long as this complies with the established academic requirements.

The Careers Guidance and Placement Department at the University-Enterprise Foundation at the UIB offers free advice to master's students to find placement centres and/or improve their career prospects. For a face-to-face, telephone or online interview with the service, please write to: fuedoip@uib.es

Can there be more than one placement tutor?

Yes. Different technicians at the host entity may supervise the student's work during the placement period. Nonetheless, the placement coordinator must formally be a single person who will be named in the documents as 'company tutor'. As for the university, placement monitoring shall be done by the academic tutor assigned by the Master's Management Team.

Can you do placements at your own company?

Placements are, by nature, for training and therefore do not imply an employment relationship or financial reward. For this reason, general regulations prohibit doing placements at a company or institution that you have a contractual relationship with. With regard to multinationals, institutions with different work centres or certain, duly justified, exceptional circumstances, placements at entities where students are employed may be authorised if there is a commitment to clearly differentiate the master's placement from the student's normal job activity.

Who pays the social security contributions?

Bearing in mind that master's placements are not compensated, the university shall, where regulations so stipulate, cover the cost of incorporating students into the social security system as per the terms set out in additional provision five of Royal Decree-Law 28/2018 of 28th December pertaining to increasing public pensions and other urgent measures in social, labour and employment matters.

What are the requirements where placements involve frequent contact with minors?

Article 13.5 of Organic Law 1/1996 on the Legal Protection of Minors sets out as a requirement to access activities involving frequent contact with minors not having been sentenced for any crime against personal freedom or sexual identity, including sexual assault or abuse, exhibitionism and sexual enticement, prostitution and sexual exploitation, and corruption of minors, as well as human trafficking.

Therefore, if the business of the selected company for placements on the Master's in Occupational Health could involve frequent interaction with minors, all students shall accredit compliance with the aforementioned provision by providing the CEP with a certificate proving they are not on the sex offenders register via the following link: http://postgrau.uib.es/certificado_delitos_sexuales, before the start of the placement. This certificate can be obtained from the Ministry of Justice website.

How is the placement plan processed for each student?

The specific placement plan for each student is formalised in Appendix 2B (master's curricular placement) in the agreement.

In order to process said appendix, all students must carry out a task on Aula Digital to provide the basic details of the proposal to their academic tutor. When the latter has confirmed the plan with the tutor, the Centre for Postgraduate Studies will provide the text for Appendix 2B to the student (as first signatory) via electronic procedure, to the company tutor (second signatory) and to the academic tutor (third signatory), as well as to the CEP director (fourth and final signatory). Finally, the CEP will send the appendix with the four signatures to the student and the collaborating entity.

When can the placements begin?

Once all parties have received the signed appendix, students may join the company on the date agreed in the placement plan. They shall comply with the stipulated timetable, respect the operating regulations at the collaborating entity (including the dress code), fulfil the agreed activities diligently and show, at all times, a respectful attitude towards the entity's and university's policies. They shall also ensure confidentiality and professional secrecy with regard to internal information from the entity and its activities both during and after the placement period.

How are placements assessed?

Assessment for subject 10129 Professional Placements is performed in line with the specific guidelines set out in the study plan, which may be viewed in the course guide. The mark for the subject shall be awarded by the academic tutor at the university.

The planned assessment elements are: the final report issued by the tutor at the company, the final report written by the student and any other monitoring indicators that the academic tutor deems suitable.

Performance of the placement and submission of the report are set out in the course guide as 'non-recoverable' assessment activities, meaning there can be no resit mark for the same academic year.

Where students are unable to complete the placement satisfactorily in the same academic year, they may formalise a new proposal for the following year with the option to change company and, therefore, tutor.

What is the UIB tutorial action plan during the placement period?

Where required and/or requested, company tutors and students may make a face-to-face, telephone or online appointment with the academic tutor to resolve any issues, notify any incident that has occurred or simple to keep in contact.

Any visits to the placement centre that the academic tutor deems appropriate shall be arranged beforehand by e-mail.